Rust

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT delivers a highly capable Rust experience, with the data showing that the optimal settings depend heavily on the target resolution and refresh rate. At 1080p, the Medium preset (153.1 FPS average) provides an excellent balance, offering a substantial improvement over High settings (126.3 FPS) while only marginally trailing Low (174 FPS). For 1440p, the High preset (86 FPS) emerges as the sweet spot, as it maintains fluid frame rates while providing superior visual fidelity over Medium (106.7 FPS) or Low (153.4 FPS). At 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, making the Medium preset (61.2 FPS) the recommended choice for a stable experience, though users with FreeSync displays may prefer High (52.5 FPS) for better image quality.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data reveals a clear hierarchy of presets that shifts with resolution. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 174 FPS, which is 37.8% higher than Medium and 82.7% higher than Ultra. However, the gap between Low and Medium (20.9 FPS) is smaller than the gap between Medium and High (26.8 FPS), suggesting that Medium offers the most efficient use of GPU resources for high-refresh-rate gaming at 1080p. The Ultra preset at 95.2 FPS is still playable but represents a 45.3% drop from Medium, which is difficult to justify for the visual gains.

Moving to 2560x1440, the High preset at 86 FPS provides the best experience for most users. It is 24.8% faster than Ultra (65.2 FPS) and only 19.4% slower than Medium (106.7 FPS). The Low preset at 153.4 FPS is suited for competitive play, but the visual compromise is significant. For 4K, the Medium preset at 61.2 FPS is the recommended starting point, as it is 17% faster than High (52.5 FPS) and 50% faster than Ultra (40.8 FPS). The Low preset at 89.8 FPS remains viable for players prioritizing frame rate above all else, but the Medium preset delivers a more balanced experience.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT, built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with a 4 nm process, is the dominant component in this pairing. Its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for Rust's large, procedurally generated worlds and high-resolution textures. The GPU's 4096 shading units and 128 ROPs, combined with a boost clock of 2970 MHz, allow it to push high frame rates even at 4K, though the data shows diminishing returns as settings increase.

The GPU's 48.66 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 760.3 GTexel/s texture rate are reflected in the benchmark results. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 174 FPS, but this drops to 95.2 FPS at Ultra, a 45.3% reduction. This scaling indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher settings, as the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient to feed the GPU at lower resolutions. The GPU's 304 W TDP and dual-slot design suggest it is a high-power part, but the data does not quantify thermal or power behavior in-game.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 82 versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 39647, places it well above the CPU's 75th percentile ranking. This asymmetry is important: the RX 9070 XT is the stronger component, and Rust's performance characteristics are largely GPU-limited at higher resolutions and settings. The GPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks, such as the AMD Radeon Pro 575 and NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile, are within 0.6% of its average score, but these are workstation parts that do not reflect gaming performance.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS degradation from 1080p to 4K is steep and reveals the system's bottleneck characteristics. At Low settings, the average frame rate drops from 174 FPS at 1080p to 153.4 FPS at 1440p (an 11.8% reduction) and then to 89.8 FPS at 4K (a 48.4% reduction from 1440p). This pattern indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor, as the CPU's performance headroom is not exhausted at lower resolutions.

At High settings, the scaling is more pronounced: 126.3 FPS at 1080p drops to 86 FPS at 1440p (a 31.9% reduction) and then to 52.5 FPS at 4K (a 39% reduction from 1440p). The relative drop from 1080p to 4K is 58.4%, which is larger than the Low preset's 48.4% drop. This suggests that higher settings increase the GPU's workload disproportionately, making the RX 9070 XT the sole bottleneck. The Medium preset shows a similar trend, with 153.1 FPS at 1080p falling to 106.7 FPS at 1440p (30.3% reduction) and 61.2 FPS at 4K (42.6% reduction from 1440p).

The Ultra preset exhibits the steepest scaling curve: 95.2 FPS at 1080p, 65.2 FPS at 1440p (31.5% reduction), and 40.8 FPS at 4K (37.4% reduction from 1440p). The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 57.1%. These results confirm that Rust at 4K Ultra is beyond the comfortable range for this combo, while 1440p and 1080p remain strong. The CPU's 12 MB of L3 cache and 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth are adequate for the game's threading model, as evidenced by the consistent scaling across resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a clear progression across presets. Low settings deliver 174 FPS, which is the highest recorded value for this combo. Medium settings reduce this to 153.1 FPS, a 12% decrease, while High settings drop further to 126.3 FPS, a 17.5% decrease from Medium. Ultra settings are the most demanding, yielding 95.2 FPS, which is 24.6% lower than High. The spread from Low to Ultra is 78.8 FPS, indicating that the GPU has ample headroom at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the performance envelope tightens. Low settings achieve 153.4 FPS, which is still excellent for competitive play. Medium settings produce 106.7 FPS, a 30.4% reduction, while High settings reach 86 FPS, a 19.4% reduction from Medium. Ultra settings drop to 65.2 FPS, a 24.2% reduction from High. The spread from Low to Ultra is 88.2 FPS, which is wider than at 1080p, reflecting the increased GPU load.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor. Low settings yield 89.8 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. Medium settings drop to 61.2 FPS, a 31.8% reduction, while High settings reach 52.5 FPS, a 14.2% reduction from Medium. Ultra settings bottom out at 40.8 FPS, a 22.3% reduction from High. The spread from Low to Ultra is 49 FPS, which is narrower than at lower resolutions, confirming that the GPU is saturated.

The data shows that the 16 GB VRAM of the RX 9070 XT is not exhausted at any resolution, as the frame rates decline smoothly without sudden drops that would indicate memory swapping. The GPU's 128 ROPs and 380.2 GPixel/s pixel rate are sufficient for Rust's rendering workload, but the game's draw calls and object density at Ultra settings create a significant performance penalty.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-11400F and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT combination ranks 474th out of 1717 tested combos in Rust, placing it in the 72.4th percentile of all configurations. This is a strong result, given that the CPU is a mid-range part from the Rocket Lake generation with a 75th percentile ranking versus all CPUs, while the GPU is a high-end RDNA 4.0 part with an 82nd percentile ranking versus all GPUs.

The combo's rank is heavily influenced by the CPU's synthetic performance. The i5-11400F's average benchmark score of 17181 places it within 0.2% of its nearest rivals, including the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (17189) and the Intel Core i7-1260P (17212). This tight clustering suggests that the CPU is not a differentiator in Rust, as its 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient for the game's multi-threaded workload, but they do not provide the headroom of higher-core-count parts.

The GPU's synthetic performance, with an average score of 39647, is more decisive. Its nearest rivals in the GPU benchmark are within 0.6% of its score, but these are professional workstation parts. In gaming, the RX 9070 XT's 16 GB VRAM and 644.6 GB/s bandwidth are well-suited for Rust, which benefits from large memory pools for texture streaming. The combo's 474th rank out of 1717 indicates that it outperforms the majority of tested configurations, with the measured FPS data showing that it can handle 1080p and 1440p at high settings with ease, while 4K requires compromises.

The rank reflects the balanced nature of the pairing: the CPU's single-thread performance (3DMark single-thread score of 868) and multi-thread performance (3DMark max-threads score of 5652) are adequate for Rust's simulation and physics, while the GPU's raw compute (48.66 TFLOPS) drives the rendering. The data does not show any CPU bottleneck at 1080p Low (174 FPS), which is a positive indicator for this combo's overall efficiency.